


Paraselene

by kore_rising



Series: Celestial Bodies [1]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-15
Updated: 2010-08-15
Packaged: 2017-10-14 11:00:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/148566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kore_rising/pseuds/kore_rising
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Remind me again <strong>why</strong> we have to camp?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paraselene

**Author's Note:**

> Rating: M  
> Pairing: Arthur/Ariadne  
> Notes/Warnings: Written for [this](http://community.livejournal.com/inception_kink/5987.html?thread=8644195#t8644195) prompt at [](http://community.livejournal.com/inception_kink/profile)[**inception_kink**](http://community.livejournal.com/inception_kink/) : Skinny-dipping at midnight.  
>  The characters, setting and story of Inception are the property of Christopher Nolan and no cash is being made from this story.

"Remind me again **why** we have to camp?" Arthur grumbles for about the thousandth time, swatting at one of the non existent mosquitoes that he insists are plaguing him.  
Seriously, I am on the verge of throttling him and his _tight enough to break rocks on_ ass. It's like camping with a two year old. A very attractive, witty and intelligent two year old, but a two year old nonetheless.

"Because," I sigh, "the mark is a keen hiker and naturalist who spends all his free time in this particular national park. He doesn't fly anywhere. He had no surgery scheduled. He doesn't even drink, so we couldn't spike his glass in a bar at then drag him somewhere inconspicuous. It was this or Eames' hilarious "kidnapping him dressed as the US presidents" plan. **That** is why we're sitting here on the edge of this lake surrounded by trees not in a comfy warehouse or a nice hotel." ( _and you knew that already_! I mentally add in a furious shout.)

But all things considered, it isn't half as bad as Arthur is making it sound. It's summer for one thing, so we're not freezing in the wilds. We have a camp fire lit, which is bringing out his inner pyromaniac a little. We have really luxurious tents, which  though they're made of canvas are a far cry from what I was used to from camping as a kid. We even have comfortable beds. Plus the spot we're in? Is beautiful. Even I, a city and building person if ever there was one, can see that. We're fetched up on the edge of a tiny lake which is as calm and smooth as a mirror, reflecting the ancient deciduous forest which grows around it and the huge expanse of night sky above. The moon is full and sending a silvery path over the water that seems to end at the shore near where we've lit our fire. It's quiet except for the night noises of foxes, deer and owls and we could be the last two people on Earth.

Arthur makes a exasperated noise. Most of the problem is that he wanted to go with Eames and Cobb to trail the mark, but Cobb had decided that Eames alone would be a better companion. "Sorry love," the forger had smiled."I was in the boy scouts you know. Remind me to show you my uniform one day. I had a woggle and everything." In response Arthur had flipped him the bird and resumed throwing wood on the fire as if each piece was part of the Englishman's dismembered body and he was barbecuing. But to be fair to Cobb, Arthur isn't really a woods person. He tends to be a bit heavy footed in the undergrowth. "My family didn't go camping," he had snapped when Cobb told him it would be like a family summer vacation, "We went to Europe and we stayed indoors like civilised people!"

So now Arthur and I are alone in the middle of the wilderness for a whole night and it's up to me to try and initiate him into the joy of camping and the outdoor life and I don't plan on trying a singsong (I imagine his face, briefly, if I started to trill _Row, Row, Row Your Boat_. It makes me wince.)  
Not that I mind being alone with Arthur. Quite the opposite in fact; I was hoping that Eames and I would be spending the night telling idiotic stories and bad jokes round the campfire just because since our one, brief kiss during the Fischer job Arthur and I had been stuck in a limbo of meaningful looks, accidental hand brushes and half smiles that left me perpetually on edge. I wanted him, surely if he wanted me he'd have done something by now, right? He would have bought me a coffee or taken me roughly over my drawing board or I don't know, anything? But no. He just kept flirting, some days so hard I would swear it was going to happen any second now and others so little I would wonder if he had ever shown any interest in me at all. 

The one time I all but begged Eames (of all people! I was that desperate) to help me sort it the fuck out, he had pushed his sunglasses on top of his head and frowned. "I had a wonderful and very energetic night with a beautiful girl named Ellie, so I'm feeling a little fragile and possibly a little slow. You want to know if Arthur likes you? And you want me to tell you how to get him to do something about it?"  
I nodded.  
"Bloody hell, sweetheart. Alright," He swigged his black coffee and lit a cigarette. "He likes you. No, I'm not telling you if he told me or I simply observed it." He held a hand up to my questioning face to shut me up."But he does. And second of all, if I know anything about Arthur, it's this: He always picks his moment. If he hasn't done anything it's because it hasn't been the right time to do what he wants. Now, please leave me and my sex hangover to each other's tender mercies." And he pulled his aviators back down.

So I personfully squash my irritation/sexual frustration/romantic distress/pick one, any one and decide we can't sit for the whole night in a loaded silence.

"Hey, Arthur. Did you ever try a s'more?"

~*~

Luckily for us, sugar works it's magic. After an initial reluctance based on the use of twigs as a cooking implement, Arthur eats five of the gooey little treats (bless Cobb for stocking the larder like a proper camper with chocolate, marshmallows and graham crackers), licking his fingers and getting chocolate drips on his chin. "This," he had smiled between bites (and for a brief moment I caught a glimpse of a much younger Arthur underneath the point man exterior), "is delicious." For someone who has probably eaten his fair share of five star cuisine, that's quite an accolade for cookies, melted chocolate and toasted marshmallows.  
We manage to start talking properly, rather than Arthur complaining and me biting his head off in response, and I'm part way through a hilarious story of a teenage camp out that ended with my underwear being flown from the camp flag pole when he peers at me in the firelight. "You have marshmallow on your cheek," He says placidly, then wets his thumb in his mouth, reaches across and starts to clean it off me. Once I've got over Arthur's lips closing over his thumb and sucking like I wish he would parts of me, I realise he's stopped rubbing my skin and is now just cupping my face in his palm, looking at me like I've just said what I was thinking out loud. _Kiss me_ , I think as hard as I can, praying I've become telepathic at the same time, _kiss me, kiss me, kiss me..._

As if on cue an electronic ring rends the air.

He jumps and his hand jerks away as if I'm made of molten lead. "Piss on it!" I hear him hiss, then start scrabbling around for the satellite phone we brought with us. I remind myself that screaming in frustration would probably send the wrong message to everything within five square miles and try to lower my blood pressure with some deep breaths. I can hear Arthur muttering into the handset, and by the sounds of things it isn't going to be a quick _"Hey you guys! Doing anything fun? About to make out, were you? Ha ha!"_ chat.

Fuck deep breathing. I'm going for a walk.

I wave to Arthur and mime walking with two fingers, then make a circle which I hope he understands as _around the lake_. When he nods I start to wish I could just make a circle with my left thumb and forefinger, shove my right index finger in and out of the ring I'd made then point to myself and he'd get the message as clearly. It's a bit crude, but how do you mime 'dinner and a movie' unless you're Marcel _fucking_ Marceau anyway? So I give up on sexual semaphore and slouch off to the water's edge.

~*~

I stamp about four hundred yards, cursing modern technology and Arthur's sense of timing, when my surroundings start to work their peaceful magic. I'm not a nature girl, not the kind who can start a fire with a flint and some dry lichen or build a shelter with two sticks and a rucksack anyway, but there is something enchanting about the water, the moonlight and the silence that makes me tingle all over. The trees sighing in the night breeze seem to be flirting with me, encouraging me to misbehave. And being cockblocked ( _hopefully, oh please let him have been about to..._ ) by phone just fuels my sense of 'oh, what the hell!' The night is warm, the water is peaceful and I'm going for a swim.

I peel off my clothes and pile them up neatly, just in case Arthur should happen upon them and assume I'd gone temporarily naturist nuts, running into the forest with nothing more than a wreath of ivy and big smile. I hesitate when I get as far as my underwear-I could swim in it, after all-but I'm so wound up I snarl at the thought and yank it off. Given the way things stand I could probably get **Take Me Now!** tattooed on my forehead and Arthur would simply say the colour was pretty, but a facial tattoo wasn't appropriate for the workplace. What's a little nudity going to do? And I'll be in the water. _Please let it cool me off_ , I plead in silently, _please let us get through tonight without any more than sharing a cup of hot chocolate and one of us snoring._

I stand in the moonlight for a second, mother naked, feeling the breeze tickle over my bare skin and ruffle my hair. For a second I'm terrified that someone will come and see me like this, imagining Eames or Cobb popping out of the undergrowth saucer eyed and slack mouthed (or probably leering, in Eames' case), but I remind myself they and Arthur are fully occupied elsewhere, there's no one here but me and I should really be getting in the water, not prancing about on the shore in the nude. It's too shallow to dive, so I tiptoe over the pebbles and wade in, letting the coolness envelop me.

The water is bliss. Soft and clear, cold enough to be refreshing but warm enough to not be frigid. As soon as it's deep enough I surface dive under, kicking down to the lake bed which is eerily bright from the moonlight, feeling my hair drag over my back as I go, then corkscrew up to pierce the silver water of the surface. A quick glance to our camp reveals Arthur has gone from the fireside, but that's hardly surprising. He's probably slipped off to consult some document or check some piece of equipment at Cobb's request. So I paddle lazily on my back gazing at the stars for a while, trying to name the constellations.I'm so busy trying to recall which is the pole star, being blissed out on a feeling that I'm floating in the night sky and wondering why I don't just bite the bullet and make a move on Arthur myself, that I don't notice something grabbing my feet until it's too late.

My mouth opens to scream, but I'm already under the water, rocketing down to the floor in a tangle of hair and limbs. My heart feels like it's going to explode and my lungs have shrunk to pinpoints I'm so frightened, kicking out blindly until after what feels like an hour I pop out into the sweet, sweet air gasping and coughing.

To find Arthur grinning at me like he's just invented humour.

"What the hell...?" I manage to choke, too angry to register immediately that he's in the water with me and that the moonlight is glinting on his bare shoulders.  
"You scared the life out of me!" I manage to half shriek, and his face falls slightly.  
"I thought you heard me."  
" _ **No I did not**_ _ **!**_ My god, Arthur, you could have _drowned_ me!"  
-  
"I think you're being a little over dramatic. It was meant to be funny."  
"Funny? _Funny_!" I flail in the water and suddenly realise in a sickening lurch it's too deep for me to touch the bottom, which I absolutely have to do right now or the panic will over take me.  
"I'm sorry. Calm down. I didn't mean to hurt you."  
"Calm down? When I was a kid someone did that to me, only he held me under until I all but passed out. When I got free he said it was just a joke! _**Just a joke!**_ " I can feel the hysteria building in my chest, and I absolutely have to find my footing, now, _now, **now godamnit!**_  
"Please, Ariadne. I'm sorry I scared you. Come here," He puts out his arms and takes hold of my jittery form, pulling me against him. He's warm and solid, and even though part of me wants to twist free the feeling of being anchored is enough to quell most of the yawning horror in my chest. "I'm sorry." He says, over and over, in the quietest voice I've ever heard him use. One of his hands rubs my back and the other strokes my sopping wet hair, calming the acid fear out of my body.

"How old were you?" He asks once my breathing has stopped rasping across the base of his neck.  
"Eight." I mumble.  
"Who did it?"  
"A bully. He did it to all the kids at the pool."  
"Do you want me to find him and break his nose for you?" I can hear the smile in his voice.  
I manage a soggy laugh. "Would you do that?"  
"Cobb probably wouldn't approve of it as a productive use of our time, but sure. For you, I would." I lean back a little so I can see his face, and there is the customary half smile he uses when he's flirting with me, only this time it seems far less teasing than usual.

It's at about this point that some very important sensory information arrives in my brain. In moving my top half back, my bottom half  has moved into closer contact with Arthur, and some very particular parts of him at that. "Arthur," my voice is horribly squeaky, "Arthur...are you...are you _naked_?"  
"Yes. Aren't you?"  
"I...well, yes. But you're...I mean, you're holding me. And we're both in the water. Naked." Why can't I stop saying that word? I sound like a stunned virgin who's never seen a man before, let alone felt one.  
"And?"  His hands are straying down my back, stroking my sides and ghosting over my behind. My skin tingles every place he touches, as if there are hundreds of tiny fish with electric lips in the water, nibbling me piece by delicious piece into insensibility. I'm not entirely sure I can be blamed for my legs wrapping around his waist at this point.  
"We can't do this. We've barely even kissed." I manage to sigh, as his wandering hands curve over my stomach.  
"Ariadne," his voice sounds like a plea, breathless and aching. "I am not going to just fuck you and leave you. I'm not like that."  
His head dips and he starts to dot tiny kisses on my collar bone. I let my head loll back and I can see all the stars blossoming above me like fireworks. "Then why have you never...?" I say faintly.  
"I'm greedy, Ariadne. I want you, and I want all of you, for good. I'm not prepared to settle for anything less." He works up to my neck and my breath hitches in my throat. "I kept telling myself I should wait. I kept thinking it was wrong, that I could only hurt you. That there was a better man for you, somewhere. But the more I waited, the more I realised, we are better, stronger than our circumstances. We are incredible, together. And I can't let you go."  
-  
It has to be one of the longest and most impassioned things I have ever heard him say. But I barely have time to absorb it since his hands graze up my sides to palm my breasts, making me keen with the sudden contact and my nipples harden almost to the point of pain.   
"Oh god, Arthur. I thought..."  
"What?"  
"That you..." But what did I think? That he wasn't interested? That he was asexual? That he was just messing me around? That he only saw me as the wide eyed ingénue, fun to flirt with but not to be with? "...didn't want me." I finish feebly.  
"That I didn't want you?" He echoes incredulously and his eyes pin mine. "No, I didn't bring you flowers or write you love poems. I'm not that kind of man." The ferocity in his voice refuses to let me doubt what he says next.  "But I am always telling you I want you. Whenever I dreamt with you, I was telling you I wanted you. Whenever we said good morning or good night, I was telling you I wanted you. Whenever I looked at you, I was telling you I wanted you. Whenever anyone else looked at or spoke to you, I was telling you I wanted you. I was always saying it, over and over again, no matter how much I tried not to. I want you, Ariadne. Be mine."

My mouth has dropped into an astonished O of surprise. He wants me, my brain chants over and over again, Arthur wants me, awkward Ariadne the brainiac. _All of me_.  
"Say something." He prompts me. "Tell me you don't feel the same and I will leave you be, I promise."

I raise my hands out of the water, almost as if I am no longer in conscious control of myself, and hold his face between them.  
"You want me?" I manage to whisper.   
"Yes." The word drops into me like an electric shock. I could power whole cities from the way my nerves light up at hearing that one tiny statement.

"Do you want me?"

I can feel him, his body with all of it's strength and grace, his arousal caught between us, nudging against my own, and his heart and lungs working in anxious time only millimetres from mine. To think that I can render him so powerless, even as he is doing the same to me.

"Yes. Please."

And I bring his mouth down to mine, claiming what he's offering me with as much passion, as much energy and ferocity as I can. He answers me, tooth and tongue and lip and hand all taking hold of me at once. _Mine_ , my mind growls, _mine, mine, mine_! I want to leave marks and I want him to mark me so that the whole world knows we are lovers. I let go of all the months of control and give way to desire, stroking, nipping and tasting him as greedily as a child devouring candy. My mouth finds his neck and my teeth press private runes delicately into his flesh. My thumbs find his nipples and flick, scratch, roll them until they find his speed, judging from his groans and breaths of pleasure. My legs press against his behind, urging him towards me so hard I swear I am going to bruise him.

His hands are all over me at once, pulling me closer to him, squeezing my ass, tracing my spine, cradling my head and groping my breasts in an astonishing stream of motion. I hear him chuckle with pleasure when he makes me gasp "You're so sensitive. I'm hardly touching you the way I want to and you're..." He mutters in my ear, breaking off to suckle my earlobe and losing the rest of the sentence in my skin while I hear myself almost mewing with delight. I am coming undone in his hands and we've barely begun to discover each other. The need between us would be terrifying me if I didn't keep hearing him say _I want all of you, for good. I can't let you go. Be mine_. From anyone else, it would sound like fake, over sweetened romantic slush but from Arthur, who uses words as directly and precisely as a bullet or a blade, they have weight and power that underlies their gooey exterior. We're not just getting frisky for ten minutes. We're taking possession. 

So when my wandering hands finally reach his cock, when I find him hard and ready for me and hear him groan into my hair as I stroke him, perhaps that's why I don't wait. I make eye contact as I guide him into me, letting my body take him in as gradually as it can, squeezing around him until my hips are nestled against his. The universe has shrunk to his dark eyes and him, filling me up.  
"Don't move yet. Give me a second." I manage to say. Heaven help me if he doesn't smile at that; a tiny flash of ego coming through. It seems even Arthur isn't immune to being flattered by being told how big he is.  
"Uh huh." He steals my lips, then whispers into my ear, sending shivers of lust through me. "Don't worry. You won't need to get used to anyone else. You won't need to fit anyone else. Just me."   
"Oh..." My voice comes out in a high pitched squeak and I tighten almost reflexively, making him bite his lip in response.  
"I told you I was greedy, didn't I?" His hands settle on my hips as I tighten again, more deliberately and holding it for longer, wanting to undo him like he's undone me.   
I know I've all but done it when he growls "Move. Please. Move."

I slide back into his hands. The water moves with me, a cool fluid shock as we separate. I keep moving, letting him slip from me until he's barely inside and his fingers dig into my flesh, urging me back. I pause and roll my hips in a small circle, then close the distance between us again.  
My blood is roaring in my ears as I go. I want desperately to just grind into him but some part of me is urging me to try and hold out, to make it good, to relish him and make him moaning and breathless as I have been. As I am. Oh, as I am, with my clit aching and my breasts tingling whenever we meet skin to skin. I want to hold on but my body won't let me, my hips find a faster rhythm and start to press it out while I can hear him his voice one breathless rush of my name, _fuck_ and _god_ and _oh_ , over and over like a mantra. And my voice, over his, hissing out syllables of need as I press back and fulfilment as I push forward. Babbling, pleading, demanding, over and over, repeating his name like I'm going to forget it if I don't keep it on my tongue.  
We're never going to last at this rate and I just don't care. My arousal is too strong, my body wants release and him, and everything in me is crashing down in a storm of sensations. I can't stop myself from going faster, harder, I can't think of anything but how _fucking amazing_ this is; moonlight, water, sex with Arthur, I am making love to Arthur and he wants me, he wants me.  
I groan desperately and one of his hands leaves my behind, moulding my left breast instead and torturing my oversensitised nipple. His mouth seals itself to mine and he thrusts against me, harder. I can't stop myself. I reach down between our furiously colliding bodies and rub myself desperately with two fingers.     
"Oh god, Ariadne, I'm...Come for me. Come for me. Come for me, Ariadne, please." He chants, and I know he must be close but he's asking, begging for me to tip him over the edge. I press down, everything in me is coiled tight, every inch of me rushing gasping headlong towards an explosion of pleasure. Once, twice, I touch myself then my body spasms, gripping and grinding onto his cock so hard I hear him curse, my spine arching and my head dropping back, wailing his name and shattering into a billion satisfied pieces.  

~*~

We're back by the fire, having wrapped each other in towels, then wrapped into each other. I'm getting lost in the shape of his collar bone when he clears his throat and says, "You know, we forgot something very important."  
"Hmmm?"  
"Protection. It's your week off the pill."

I'm flabbergasted. I hate the word, I never use it, yet here it is.

"Wait, how do you even know that?"  
"Don't forget: Point man. It's in your medical records, after that it's just a simple matter of extrapolating dates and making observations."  
Arthur has been tracking my menstrual cycle: You could only stun me more at this moment by telling me Cobb won pastry chef of the year six years in a row for his caramel éclairs. Or that Eames has decided to become a Brazilian show girl named Porsha Maseratti starting tomorrow at the Moulin Rouge, and needs some help choosing a costume.

"That's above and beyond the call of duty, don't you think?" I finally splutter.  
"We use needles. That means I had to be sure that you were in good health and didn't have any blood borne diseases."  
"So you know my last sexual health screen was clear then."  
"As was mine."  
My skin goes cold as the gears in my brain click into place. "You think...?"  
"Don't worry about it." He tightens his arms around me. "I'll marry you if you're pregnant."  
Pardon? I turn so we're face to face. "You'll _what_?"  
"I'll marry you if you're pregnant." He pauses, perhaps realising how that sounds and correcting himself. "I'll marry you if you're not pregnant." He swallows, then "Marry me."

Scratch what I said before, this has just topped it. But on a scale of one to ten, nervous Arthur, with his wavy, ungelled hair; having just dried me with a towel, revealed he knows when my periods are and had mind blowing sex with me, is scoring about a nine on my sappy-o-meter. And now he's proposing. I may need to recalibrate it. 

"Yes. But don't you want to live together first? You don't have to ask me to marry you just because I'm a bit pissed off. You realise most people tend to just opt for _I love you_ in that scenario, don't you?"  
"I'm not asking you because you're annoyed. I'm asking because, " He stops and frowns. "Hold up. You said yes. Why am I arguing with you when you said yes?"  
"I have no idea." I plant a kiss on him, "But we are going to live together before you pick a single _boutonniere_ , yes? I don't want to end up blaming this on s'mores and the full moon."

"Come on then, " he uncurls from me and pulls me to my feet.  
"Where are we going?"  
"My tent. If you want to live together we start right now."  
"What about Eames and Cobb?"  
"I don't want to live with them. Just you."  
"What are they going to think?"  
Arthur sighs, "Honestly? They probably think it already. Or at least Eames does. He's got his hands full of Ellie, but still he's like a old maid for gossip. Anyway," he smiles and pulls me up to him, "My woman sleeps in my bed."  
"Your woman?" My eyebrows rise, but Caveman Arthur is even funnier than the adorable version.  
"Yes, my woman. In my bed. Camp bed. Tent. Whatever. Let's go." He takes my hand and starts to pull me gently in the right direction.  
"You know, for someone who wasn't keen on camping you seem pretty eager now."  
"No, I still hate it. But," He gently removes my towel and throws it inside his tent, "but I can stand anything," he punctuates with a kiss, "if I get to have you."


End file.
